TODAY'S FAYRE

TODAY’S FAYRE – Wednesday, 9^th January 2013

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

William Butler Yeats – poet – 1865-1930

This is the 4^th year running that Lionel Messi has won FIFA’S Le Ballon D’Or.  To all football aficionados that will come as absolutely no surprise.  I have been watching football since 1954 and I have never seen his like or even close – Pele, Maradona, Zidane, Ronaldo, Puskas, di Stefano, Cruyff, Van Batsen, Vierri, Beckenbauer, Muller, Best, Charlton, Matthews  – no one gets even remotely close! I expect him to win it again next year if he is fit; God willing!

We took in Dustin Hoffman’s film - The Quartet – last night.  This is the story of an old people’s home for retired opera singers and musicians.  There are some stunning cameo roles played by the likes of Dame Maggie Smith, Sir Tom Courtney, Billy Connolly, Sir Michael Gambon and Pauline Collins.  It is the quality of the acting and the humorous timing, as well as a sense of the ridiculous, that engages the audience.  The plot is a little thin on the ground, but no matter, as the facial expressions and highly charged emotional moments paper over the script’s shortcomings! It is beautifully filmed, but if you are under 50 years of age, forget it!

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” – Carl Sagan – astronomer & author – 1934-996

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” – Aldous Huxley – author – 1894-1963

Yesterday’s business news had a rather neutral and uninteresting feel about it.  The market has chosen to suffer from convenient amnesia about the EU sovereign debt crisis as if it did not exist any more.  The PR job carried out by Borosso, Van Rompuy and to a lesser degree Draghi has been exemplary. Bond yields in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy have fallen like stones in the last few months. There is even talk about Ireland being close to leaving its’ bail-out’ behind.  You have to doff your titfer to the Irish.  They have made a real fist of embracing austerity. 

However an unemployment rate of 11.8% for November was posted by the EU yesterday – nothing humorous about that bit of data.  You could say that the Mediterranean countries are responsible for much of that.  However France is starting to nudge through double digit unemployment. Germany has only 5.8% unemployment, but concern is being expressed that labour costs are rising to unacceptable levels by their recent standards and if that trend were to persists Germany would be in no financial state to keep underwriting €300 billion of EU bail-outs for the needy and financially incompetent.  Germany’s GDP estimate for 2013 is only a paltry +0.4%.  Being Europe’s largest exporter by a country mile, that number spells out grim news for the rest of the EU and for that matter Old Blighty.

Yesterday Europe saw its equity markets drift rather aimlessly – rudderless is probably the best description.  The FTSE 100 eased by 11 points to 6058. Decent trading statements published by Persimmon (sales +6%) and Debenhams (sales up 2.9%) did nothing for their share prices – already priced in.  In fact Debenhams saw profit takers in the ring. Excessive discounting – up to 50% in places during  Christmas, which was the toughest in almost 40 years, according to chief executive, Michael Sharp, may have been responsible for a 6.9% fall in its share price.  African Barrick Gold told the market that takeover talks were over – shares down 19%!  There were rumours of Verizon Coms buying Vodafone’s 45% stake in their joint venture – shares up 3.6%.  I see that Vodafone is valued at Circa £80 billion.  It is only 12 years ago that Vodafone paid €220 billion for Mannesman of Germany! Tesco is looking to build a relationship with the coffee chain Harris & Hoile. We understand this morning that in the 12 weeks to Christmas ales in Aldi rose by 30%! Yesterday the Indian authorities are chasing Nokia for unpaid tax – shares down 6%!

It was a lack-lustre session on the Street of Dreams with the DOW easing by 0.4%, the S&P by 0.3% and the NASDAQ by 0.2%.  After hours Alcoa and Monsanto posted better than expected results.  Sears had been one of the best performing retailers yesterday – up 1.8%.  Apple whose shares have fallen from $700 in September to $525 yesterday saw its CEO Tim Cook make his second visit to China in a year.  When the iPhone 5 was released Apple sold 2 million units within a few days.  Apple enjoys good relationships with China Unicom and China Telecom, but NOT with China Mobile, which is supported by 60% of mobile users.  Could that be Tim Cook’s goal? It is also interesting to note that US oil imports have dropped to their lowest level in 25 years. CONSTELLATION BRANDS & TEXAS INDUSTRIES post interim results today.  JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon has stated that some of the senior executives ‘acted like children’ in handling the ‘whale’ losses of 2012 and that some people attempted to personally take advantage of the event, and were willing to hurt the company in the process.  Coco-Cola and Pepsico may be eyed after a report from the National Institute of Health finds that regular drinkers of diet sodas have a 30% higher risk of suffering from depression. In closing this paragraph, we are still hearing mutterings about the debt ceiling! So don’t be surprised if this high octane issue rises to the top of the agenda.

Buoyed by the prospect of a reasonable US 4^th quarter earnings season the NIKKEI finished a 2-day losing streak and added 0.7% near the close with the Hang Seng up by 0.4% at lunchtime. Gold was steady at $1659 an ounce and Nymex stood at $92.96, with Brent Crude at $111.70 a barrel.

Today Sainsbury posted its much awaited trading statement.  The shares had bounced by 2% yesterday.  Had the loquacious CEO Justin King defied the odds by producing figures over Christmas that were not quite as anaemic as originally expected?  Well the sales came in bang in line with expectations – +0.9% for the last quarter and total sales up 3.9%.  Sainsbury’s own brands did very well. This sales figure is well down from the 3^rd quarter’s +1.7%.  It may just be that Tesco will beat Sainsbury tomorrow with a 1% rise in sales.  There is loose talk that Justin King may hand over the reins to Mike Coop before too long. Also will Qatar want to increase its stake?  Time alone will tell.  Many will not have forgotten that Sainsbury’s sponsorship of the Paralympics was a real coup!  Sainsbury’s shares have rallied by 14% in 2012, whereas M&S’s motored – up 23%.

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